


Survival of the Wicked

by ghouliace



Category: The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod - Zac Brewer
Genre: Other OCs/NPCs, Possible ships later on but we'll see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:55:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27761104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghouliace/pseuds/ghouliace
Summary: Survival and ambition have driven D'Ablo's every decision since he turned, and it is survival that drives his decision to leave Elysia before he can be killed. His intention is to return once things die down and resume his presidency as if nothing ever happened, but life has a way of not going as planned. Instead of returning to his presidency, he is put on trial and banished. He needs to adjust to his new lifestyle without the safeguards against all the enemies he made as president-- but if D'Ablo is good at anything, it's surviving.(rewrite of my old fic Do What it Takes to Survive)
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

D’Ablo needed to disappear.

It was an unpleasant notion that he grappled with for months. The thought that his position and influence weren’t enough to deter his looming death left a sour taste in his mouth. Having to willingly choose to let them go to live in relative anonymity was worse. He always thought that his presidency would’ve been ripped away from him by force, like it had two years ago when Vladimir blasted that hole through him with the Lucis. Everyone knew he’d only ever relinquish his power when his heart was torn out of his chest and his body fell, lifeless, at the feet of his murderer. ‘Over my dead body,’ he would say. That was soon going to become a reality, however, if he didn’t get moving.

He was paranoid by nature. He had a bank account, and then dozens of other secret bank accounts that he regular siphoned money into. He knew better than to do anything that might set off alarm bells. The main one, the one that his salary went into, went untouched except for his regular purchases. Slowly, he consolidated the secret accounts into three massive ones, each one enough to take him through decades without an income. He hoped it wouldn’t come down to decades, or, God forbid, centuries, but Tomas and Vikas could play the long game. If they won, they’d be after him eventually.

He travelled enough that having a suitcase waiting by his door was normal. His guests paid it no mind, but D’Ablo had to bite his tongue whenever Vikas’ gaze so much as wandered in that direction. D’Ablo’s neat home grew progressively neater as he went through it—clothes that made sense for the freezing Scandinavian weather into the suitcase, anything else hanging in his closet. The cat toys put away in bins, their food and litter collected until he handed the animals and all their care items to Alexander, a non-Elysian assassin who he could safely call a friend, and the only person who knew that he was leaving for good. He was fortunate that the Sanguids were unestablished and unstable enough to not be of much concern to anyone. If Tomas and Vikas came looking for him, and he didn’t doubt they would, they wouldn’t turn to the Sanguids first. The first Sanguid was recorded to exist around one-thousand years ago—Elysians, pre-civilization. It wouldn’t do the Sanguids any good to start a conflict with one of the most powerful vampire covens in the world.

Fortunately, Alexander didn’t care much for vampire politics. It worked out, and D’Ablo could ignore the melancholy that accompanied all his activities as he prepared to erase himself from the face of the Earth.

At least, until he had to get rid of the waist-length blond curls that he was famous for. His hair made him stick out like a sore thumb. Alexander swooped in once again to help with that problem, but his commentary was decidedly unhelpful. D’Ablo had never wondered if he had an oddly-shaped head until Alexander asked him if he did, and now he was permanently rubbing the newly-exposed back of his head, grimacing at the air flowing over his neck. He was uncomfortable. The black hair and eyebrows threw the contours of his pale face into sharp relief and contrasted sharply with his blue eyes. He was striking. A stranger who looked like this would have caught his attention and his company for the night.

He despised it. Deeply. He had forgotten how curly his hair really was—when it was long, it hung in loose ringlets from its sheer weight. Without its usual mass, it formed tight curls at the top of his head. If it weren’t for Alexander’s choice of cut—sharp contours at every edge of his hairline, sheared short enough at the sides and back that it didn’t curl, and long in the front—he thought he would look like a particularly stunning poodle.

If the hair was bad, the clothing choice of his persona was worse. He had to dig deep into the recesses of his closet for the sorts of things _Lucien Vincent_ would wear. He would go for business-casual. Something comfortable, but tailored to fit him nicely. He’d cut a clean figure, but he didn’t want to stick out. So D’Ablo’s heeled boots? Not an option. The leather pants? Out of the question. The mesh shirts that he wore specifically when he wanted a quick dance and meal at a club? Forgotten. Even more painful, he had to leave his tailored Armani suits and custom Louboutins, all in favor of a closet that consisted largely of brown and black suede shoes, slacks in various neutral shades, and turtlenecks. To say that D’Ablo was disgusted was an understatement. Bile rose into his throat whenever he thought about it. Of all the awful things Tomas and Vikas could have done to him, this was by far the cruelest.

He stepped off the plane in the Gardermoen Airport in Oslo eight hours after he left Alexander behind in Michigan. He took business class, a far cry from his usual indulgence into first class. Lucien Vincent wouldn’t take first class. He might even take economy, but D’Ablo wasn’t about to suffer through a flight in business without indulging in the free alcohol. He left the plane pleasantly buzzed after knocking back the equivalent of one and a half whiskey bottles underneath his neighbor’s increasingly concerned gaze. The cold air instantly shocked him back to sobriety. He clutched his tan coat (gag) tighter around his body and waved down a taxi. He was already renting a place—a bulk payment of nine months’ rent had sweetened the deal for the landlord who was initially hesitant to rent out to a man who had materialized out of nowhere.

D’Ablo had the foresight to have furniture both delivered and set up before he arrived. The apartment was still bare and lifeless, but he didn’t have any intention of changing that. He wasn’t going to be in hiding forever. When it was safe, he would pull some strings and return to his deserved glory.

He wanted something to do. His work computer, however, was back in Michigan, as was anything else Stokerton-council related. He itched to analyze, think, type, _work._ He set his suitcase at the door and left the apartment again. He had been to Oslo a couple of times—a nice, neutral place to have a conference, a place where no one council was on their home turf. It was lovely, and cold. He remembered the cold more than he remembered the sights. His breath came in quick puffs of fog as he walked briskly down the dark, 4 AM street, a prickle going down his spine every time air brushed over the newly-bare skin of his neck. He adjusted his scarf, but it remained in his bones.

Cities like this were never truly dead. Golden light glowed from behind the drawn curtains of apartments and offices. Sometimes a silhouette was cast against the fabric. Other times the light was blue and flashing, an insomniac with their TV or whatever other device was popular these days. He passed people. A homeless man lied on sheets of cardboard, curled protectively around his little dog who was sleeping peacefully in his arms. Another man who reeked of alcohol, sprawled out on the concrete, who would likely be dead before the morning came. Prostitutes shivering in their stockings, some wearing expensive and borrowed fur coats, others forced to wait in nothing but their skirts and tops, bare skin erupted in goosebumps. Some drunken men and women staggered out of a bar that seemed to be ready to close, but D’Ablo ducked inside anyway, pressing his hand to his frozen cheeks in a futile attempt to soothe the biting burn of the air.

The bartender was tall and lanky, and despite the semi-formal vest and starched white shirt that made up his uniform, his messy hairstyle and haphazardly-shaved beard only made him look scruffy. His ears had a slight point, and his pupils were blown to the size of quarters in the dim light. D’Ablo might have guessed drugs, but the ears were a dead giveaway, marking the bartender as a Sanguid. D’Ablo wondered if the bartender recognized him as a vampire—an Elysian’s deathly pallor was one way of identifying them, but nobody could be sure without looking for a Mark. He slid onto a stool, the only patron at the unoccupied bar as more and more people picked themselves up and dragged themselves out.

“A whiskey ember.” He had brushed up on his Norwegian before coming here, but the American accent was still painfully obvious. He would have to work on that. “Please,” he added in afterthought. Lucien Vincent was perfectly polite. He acknowledged the existence of servers outside of the instances that he needed them to refill his glass.

This was going to be harder than he thought. He mustered up a thank you when the man set the glass on the table. The chili syrup bit into his tongue and burned all the way down his throat, but the combination of it and the whiskey returned some warmth to his blood and some feeling to his fingers. He sighed, almost in relief, and set the now-empty glass down. He could stop there, or he could order another one. He didn’t have any alcohol in his new apartment, anyway. While he would have to remedy that, he was here now.

The staff tolerated him for another fifteen minutes, during which he knocked back another three glasses of the whiskey drink and four shots of vodka, before they asked him to leave. He had just barely warmed up, but he wasn’t going to push his luck. If he were in Stokerton, he would. He would get away with it, too. Here, it was better not to draw attention. He left, and gazed up at the face of the bar, committing its name to memory. It was a nice enough place, and he would like to return. He was about to turn away, but the space above the bar caught his eye. He hadn’t noticed it when he arrived, too preoccupied with regaining the feeling in his fingers and ears, but there was an office space above it for rent. D’Ablo cracked a smile, his first one in hours. If the bar wasn’t reason enough to come back, he would have to return for this. He had mulled over how he was going to spend his absence. Certainly not sitting pretty, waiting for Elysia to welcome him again. He had decided that, although he couldn’t be involved with Elysian law without going through the Parisian council for a certification first, human law was fair game. Silly and arbitrary, but fair. He had always liked arguing, after all. There was something he liked about the idea of going back to his roots. Before he was D’Ablo della Vega, president of the Stokerton Council, he was an upstart rebel with too sharp of a tongue. Before that, he was the assistant of London’s council president, and even before that, he was a lawyer in London with too sharp of a tongue. It was almost perfect. He didn’t believe in fate—Dorian’s blithering about destiny and whatnot drove him up the wall—but some coincidences were too perfect.

He swiftly made the freezing walk back to the apartment with a new lightness in his chest. He knew he would be able to pull this off, of course. That was never in doubt. He seemed reckless, but he planned carefully and knew to cover all his bases. Finding a potential office to rent so soon was a sweet cherry on top of the seething mess that was his current situation. If he could rent the place—and he saw no reason why anyone would deny him (and if they did, mind control would do the trick)—and start working, he would fill his days until he could return to Stokerton. Nobody would expect to find him surrounded by humans, in a country where the temperature regularly went to freezing.

It would be lonely, but it would do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, welcome back to Do What it Takes to Survive, under its new title Survival of the Wicked. My high school writing kind of made me cringe and I have a better idea of the plot. The way I write D'Ablo has also developed a little more since high school so I decided to rewrite this.  
> (Alexander is an OC from my personal writing who is making a cameo. Sanguids are my own vampire lore but it's not important to be familiar with them because it is just a cameo).


	2. Chapter 2

D’Ablo was declared missing the next day. He only found out four nights after the announcement, when he took the risk to obtain an Elysian VPN to access its media. It was a powerful little piece of plastic and metal that could pick up signals from local Elysian broadcasting networks and access their own version of the Internet. The policy was for vampires to show their Mark when buying one, but D’Ablo had gotten away with speaking Elsyian Code with the seller. It was as good as a Mark, since Elysian Code could take decades to learn, a trouble that less and less vampires were going to these days. The presence of a Mark, however, made sure that the vampire wasn’t banished and was authorized to have access to that sort of information. Most people were trusting, though—only the real sticklers insisted on seeing a Mark.

D’Ablo had hoped for a little more time before Elysia exploded in its search for him. He wasn’t foolish enough to grow complacent after the searches ended, but these were going to be the most dangerous weeks—or even months—for him. He ran his tongue over his teeth, willing his fangs back into his gums as he checked his hair in the mirror, the newscast blaring from the speakers of his new laptop.

_“Siberian president Vikas Morozov has devoted 80% of his scouting force to bringing the Stokerton Council president home. The Siberian Council is the sixth council to pour its resources into this search, following yesterday’s announcements by the Cairo and Edinburgh councils.”_

D’Ablo chewed on his tongue. Six councils? They were making him feel special. The fact that Vikas joined _after_ Qadira, Vivien, Raúl, Francois, and his own council gave D’Ablo a pause, but he supposed it made sense. To say that relations between Stokerton and Siberia were strained was an understatement. If Vikas rushed into retrieving him too quickly, it would cause some raised eyebrows.

D’Ablo grinned into the mirror, applying a delicate, lightly shimmering blush, bringing some blood to his pallid cheekbones. He bet that these past few days were agonizing for Vikas. Having to sit on his fingers as D’Ablo did God-knows-what was not his style. D’Ablo hoped that Vikas and Tomas panicked, that Tomas’ plan flashed before their eyes. D’Ablo dropping off the face of the Earth was never in the equation. He had always confronted things head-on, crashing in like a bull and wiping out any obstacle. In the eyes of Elysia, he was a wild card, and this carefully planned disappearance was so out of character for him that most of Elysia believed it to be a kidnapping, even if all the signs pointed against that.

D’Ablo’s image flashed onto the screen. His blond hair was pulled into a tight braid at the back of his head, the way he wore it at work, with the tail end draped over his suited shoulder. It drew his face higher, making it more angular that it already was. He didn’t remember taking the picture, but he must have been in a good mood, because his closed-mouth smile was barely restrained, and his images’ narrowed eyes pierced into D’Ablo’s own in the reflection of the mirror. His picture was clearly satisfied about something that had happened that day. D’Ablo allowed himself a full smile. It was like sharing a joke with himself.

_“President della Vega was last seen heading in the direction of his home by the Stokerton Council Vice President, Cristina Brisedo. It is unknown if he arrived. There was no sign of a struggle at President della Vega’s home, and no important belongings are missing. He was declared missing four days ago, when family and friends grew concerned that they could not reach him by phone and he was not at home. It is still too early to conclude whether President della Vega’s disappearance was intentional, or if we should expect a ransom. We will provide real-time updates as they come. This is Madelyn Despielgarie, Channel Six.”_

D’Ablo barked out a laugh. A ransom? He doubted anyone would want to pay a ransom for him. The way people danced in the streets when an unpopular politician died, he was sure there were such parties happening in Elysian households all over the world. If he really wanted to see it, he could open his Twitter feed, but he didn’t feel the need to confirm what he already knew. The notion that people were celebrating his potential kidnapping, and maybe even death, didn’t bother him. He was widely loathed, and hadn’t made any effort to redeem that. Politicians weren’t supposed to be loved, anyway, and he had the privilege of having his seat until it was either torn from him or he died. Without the concern of re-election hanging over his head, he had no reason to worry about being popular.

He finished up his human mask with a berry lip stain, adding the final touch to his bloodless lips and bringing himself back to life. The owner of the office above the bar had fallen over himself to rent out to him. Turned out, nobody had taken the offer, and D’Ablo could see why. The place was in desperate need of renovation, and it was above a noisy bar, but he already had people working on it. D’Ablo had studied Norwegian law and passed the certification exam back in Stokerton, had forged a law degree so perfect that nobody would have a reason to question it, and the Norwegian Supervisory Council was fully aware of him. Lucien Vincent, that was. He was set—he just needed a place out of which to practice. The men working on his new office were on a strict deadline. He wanted to start working as soon as possible, otherwise he would remain glued to his computer, frantically checking the updates on his own case.

The computer blared behind him again with a new broadcast, making him jump. D’Ablo turned away from his reflection, wondering what was so important to interrupt the advertisements. To his surprise, Dorian’s face swam onto the monitor. He wet his lips and sat at the table, gazing at the screen with his chin tucked into his folded arms. The same newscaster appeared next to Dorian’s image. At the bottom of the screen, a banner rolled—DORIAN CIOTTI DECLARED DEAD.

D’Ablo squinted at the computer, unsure he was reading that correctly. The words continued to scroll, and the announcer’s voice narrated along with it.

_“The body of Dorian Ciotti, son of Enrico Ciotti and Keeper of the Prophecy, was found dead in a cemetery in the town of Bathory, Michigan.”_ The camera cut to what D’Ablo assumed was said cemetery, where numbers of vampires were milling around. D’Ablo recognized some faces and furrowed his brow. Why were Stokerton officials retrieving Dorian’s body? That should be Enrico’s responsibility, or, at least, the responsibility of the vampires working under him.

D’Ablo’s heart sank. Did Enrico even know? Dorian and his father shared a rare bond that most vampires would never see or experience in their lifetime. If soulmates existed, Dorian and Enrico were the perfect example.

_“An autopsy report reveals the official cause of death to be a puncture wound in the heart. With this information, officials believe that the perpetrator was a Slayer.”_ D’Ablo would have been inclined to agree if he didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes. Dorian was a very real threat to Tomas’ plans. As far as D’Ablo knew, Dorian had kept his direct involvement with the Pravus secret from his father from the very beginning. Did Enrico suspect anything at all? Did he believe Tomas was still alive, no matter how much Vladimir insisted on the opposite? Had Tomas eliminated this threat once and for all, cutting off the risk of further Ciotti involvement down the line?

Regardless of what Enrico knew or didn’t know, he would target somebody. D’Ablo would have to keep a lookout for the inevitable news that Enrico had cracked.

Being ignorant was one of the things that D’Ablo hadn’t foreseen. He was always in the thick of things, always the first to know the news before the media even got their hands on it. He might even have repackaged it once or twice (or several times) before it ever reached the Elysian public. Now, he had to rely on the same news sources he was used to controlling for slivers of information that brought up more questions than answers. The broadcast ended quickly. There wasn’t much more information to release, and a vampire dead by stake was not as sensational as a council president going missing. D’Ablo doubted it was a Slayer, but barring some miracle, that’s what it would be chalked up to. An exceptionally fortunate, exceptionally talented Slayer brought down the Prophecy Keeper and Enrico’s wrath upon their head.

He was right to disappear now. If they were reporting on Dorian’s death today, tomorrow might’ve been him. D’Ablo closed the laptop on the newscaster’s face with a sigh. Dorian was dead and gone now. It was somewhat of a relief, but it also filled him with dread. On one hand, he had been on the receiving end of Dorian’s mind control often enough, and to say he despised the man was an understatement. On the other hand, his death removed him as a stick in the cogs of Tomas’ perfect plan. Tomas’ attention wasn’t on Dorian anymore, so he could focus on Vladimir and D’Ablo. Once either one of them was out of the way, Tomas could focus fully on his final goal.

D’Ablo almost rubbed his hand over his face, then remembered he had makeup on. He settled for rubbing his temple instead. “Shit.”

He was starting to reconsider work. Maybe it would be safer to hunker down. As soon as the thought swam up, he shook it away. There was no reason to do so. Nobody would look for him, the man who insisted on all the council meetings being held in sunny Cairo because it was warm, in a Northern European country. Nobody would expect him to take the drastic measure of cutting his hair, knowing how important it was to him and just how much time and money he put into its care. He had even invented an entirely new fake name, so the name he typically gave humans would be a dead end.

Dorian was dead, but D’Ablo would prevail. He wouldn’t stay locked inside this dingy place when he could do something better with his time. He would come out on top of this, no matter how tough it would be, no matter how many adjustments he had to make, how many vampires he had to avoid. He had never, ever, gone through life with his head down and he wasn’t about to start.

Tomas and Vikas may have this new advantage. D’Ablo was going to ride it out until it made sense to take the risk to come back into the limelight again. Justice would be swift. Of that, he was certain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot really picks up next chapter 👀 I'm having a lot of fun rewriting this-- thanks for reading!!


	3. Chapter 3

The next year passed uneventfully.

Enrico’s predicted breakdown happened. According to the news, the grief-stricken father had threatened a human teenager with his favorite sword, and needed to be forcefully dragged away before he skewered the boy and revealed Elysia to humankind. He went mad with grief, commentators concluded. Like son, like father. It must run in the Ciotti family line. Wasn’t Dorian’s own son also a little strange before his tragic passing? Three generations of Ciottis, succumbing to the madness within their blood.

Enrico’s subsequent death caused yet another uproar. He was found with his heart torn out of his chest, bruises and wounds all over his body after a vicious fight. It was even more intriguing than Dorian’s death—this wasn’t a Slayer. A Slayer couldn’t rip through skin and muscle and bone with his bare hands and tear a man’s still-beating heart out of his chest. An investigation erupted over Enrico’s death, too, but the case was soon declared cold. His killers left nothing behind but the body. Even D’Ablo couldn’t be sure that Tomas and Vikas were behind it. In Enrico’s madness, any vampire might have taken it upon themselves to put him down.

D’Ablo wouldn’t miss him, either. Enrico’s death left behind the only tolerable Ciotti—the youngest son, slightly slow and naïve but pleasant enough to be around. Perhaps this was finally the opportunity to annex New York City into Stokerton jurisdiction. He hoped Cristina, his vice president and current sitting president, was getting on that.

D’Ablo’s disappearance was also declared a cold case. Beijing was the last to offer its resources, but it was also the first to retract them when D’Ablo or D’Ablo’s body wasn’t produced. Mexico City was next to back out, followed by Cairo, Paris, Edinburgh, and finally Siberia. Stokerton held out for another month, but it, too, eventually declared it was dropping its nine-month search. There was no way of knowing that D’Ablo was dead, and hardly anyone believed he was, but it was clear that if he didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be found.

Truthfully, there were a couple of close calls that still sent D’Ablo’s blood pressure up whenever he thought about them. A group of Siberian and Edinburgh scouts, together, had walked into the bar below his law practice. D’Ablo was about to head down himself after a long day of calling a particularly idiotic client an idiot, but hearing Elysian code made him freeze on the steps and make a beeline right for his desk, where he stayed until he saw the group leave from the window in his office. Needless to say, he got ridiculously drunk, and passed by a liquor store to stock up on more alcohol to calm his thundering heart.

The second time was a much closer call. An Elysian, of all people, asked him to argue a case, a dispute she was having with a human. As he declined her, his sleeve rode up, exposing his Mark. He only noticed when her eyes wandered in the direction of the thick black ink on his wrist and lowered his hand as casually as possible. Her gaze lingered, but her mind was open. She still thought he was human, even with the placement of the tattoo. Some quick mind control buried the memory of seeing it deep into the recesses of her consciousness. His mind control was rusty, and he had never been particularly elegant at it in the first place, always preferring to resolve problems with words and fists rather than tricks, but as the awareness returned to her eyes and she apologized for blanking out, he thought it worked. He could only hope that it did. Murdering, or buying the murder of a fellow Elysian wasn’t exactly in line with his survival strategy of keeping his head down and avoiding suspicion. He watched her leave, and to his relief, she walked away without looking back.

D'Ablo had work, though. He ended making a name for himself as a divorce lawyer (which was disappointing—he was hoping to prosecute homicides), and had yet to lose a case. He only had to resort to mind control one or two times, too, which gave him more satisfaction than he cared to admit. He hadn’t argued in a courtroom in centuries, but he still had his edge. He didn’t enjoy it as much as his presidency, but it served its purpose of keeping him busy and relatively entertained. Sometimes, he even dared to think that he was happy. There was a lightness to living without enemies, without the constant fear of an assassin being sent after him, or a poisoned envelope, or a bomb being sent to his door, or a furious family member of somebody whose execution he ordered trying to stab him in the middle of the street. He wasn’t popular with the ex-spouses of his clients, but he could live with that. Nobody liked lawyers, anyway.

The beginning of his downfall came on an unassuming Tuesday night. The moon was a lovely crescent shape in the night sky, illuminating the edges of drifting clouds and drowning out the stars. He didn’t always stay in his office so late, and maybe he could have avoided this encounter if he had gone back to his apartment after his usual drink at the bar. Instead, he brought a bottle of scotch upstairs and sat back down at his desk, crossing his ankles over the corner and balancing his laptop precariously on his lap. His right arm lay on the edge of the desk, unused, as his left hand flew over the keyboard and consolidated a report. He had gotten fast at typing with one hand, an endeavor that initially frustrated him to no end. He could see the ghost of his reflection in the screen, and thought that he should re-dye his roots. Clippers hadn’t gone anywhere near his head since his initial haircut and he wanted to keep it that way. The black curls were slowly straightening into waves that brushed his shoulders, and the blond region of his hair was reaching his eyebrows. He ran his hand through his hair and tilted his head back, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply.

That was when somebody knocked. He hadn’t even heard them come up the steps, too absorbed in his own thoughts.

“The office is closed,” he said, without opening his eyes.

“Can’t you make time for an acquaintance?” Dorian asked. D’Ablo’s eyes snapped open. He lurched up to sitting, sending the laptop tumbling down his shins. He caught it before it clattered to the floor and got to his feet, setting it safely on the desk. Dorian stood in his doorway, watching the scene with an amused glint and his usual forced, half-smile.

D’Ablo’s heart thundered against his chest. The Prophecy Keeper was here. He was alone, with a known cannibal, a man who—

“You’re supposed to be dead.” He hadn’t spoken English in nearly a year. The language felt alien on his tongue. His head swam. He pressed his hand to his forehead, trying to calm his breathing, slow the blood rushing in his veins.

“That’s rich coming from you,” Dorian said softly. He crossed his arms and leaned against the entrance. The most of his face was in darkness, except for the moonlight washing white light over his sharp jaw and glittering in one eye.

D’Ablo’s fingers curled into a fist. His shock bled into irritation—barely twenty seconds, and Dorian was already getting on his nerves. His palm remained pressed against his temple, feeling the vein throbbing beneath his skin. “I have a history of getting up from fatal wounds. You don’t.” Nobody got near enough to Dorian to deliver a fatal wound in the first place. “You were dead. I saw the broadcast. People were talking about it for weeks.” A pause. “You had a funeral! Your body was at the funeral.” D’Ablo couldn’t personally attend, but if Dorian’s body weren’t at Dorian’s own funeral after being found, that would have been plastered on every single Elysian network in the world.

Dorian shrugged. D’Ablo waited for him to speak, but the Keeper remained silent. Briefly, D’Ablo saw red. He hadn’t wanted to punch anyone in months, and Dorian had broken that streak in less than a minute. “How did you find me?”

Dorian stepped further into the office. Instinctively, D’Ablo took a step back. His lungs were tight. He struggled to keep his breathing even. Under his makeup, the blood drained from his face. “Stay back.”

Dorian quirked a brow. “Calm down. I won’t do anything to you.” There was a ‘yet’ in there. Dorian entertained himself by doing things to people. He was adequately entertained now—D’Ablo hated himself for being a source of that entertainment—but his moods shifted at the drop of a hat, and he would get bored eventually. Dorian smiled. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

“No.”

D’Ablo sat. Dorian’s grin widened as D’Ablo dug his nails into the armrest to keep from leaping up again and throwing him across the room. “There. Isn’t that better?”

“No.” Venom dripped from D’Ablo’s voice. His blood thundered in his ears, but he remained seated, watching Dorian sit in one of the chairs across him. Dorian picked up a paperweight and rolled it around in his hands. He didn’t speak. D’Ablo grit his teeth. “How did you find me? Seven councils’ worth of scouts couldn’t find me.”

“Are you putting me on the level of the councils’ trackers?”

“Motherfu— would it kill you to drop the cryptic act to answer one question?”

Dorian shrugged. “I asked myself what the opposite would be of what most Elysians would expect you to do. To be honest, I spent several months trying to find you in Siberia. And I was looking for a blonde. The hair was unexpected. You need to touch up your roots, by the way.”

D’Ablo indulged in a brief fantasy of breaking his chair over Dorian’s head. “How did you find me _here_?”

“I was originally only going to pass through Norway, but I had an interesting encounter with a young lady who had a hole in her memory. Really sloppy job, by the way. Do you know how obvious it is in a person’s behavior when they have a badly-suppressed memory?” He waited for a response, but D’Ablo only stared at him sullenly. People who suffered sloppy memory suppression—human or vampire—had blank gazes and short attention spans. They frequently stopped in the middle of whatever they were doing to stare into space for a moment or two before snapping back into the present. He must have been rustier than he thought.

“My original intention was simply to suppress it properly so this poor woman didn’t spend eternity knowing she was missing something,” Dorian continued. “Imagine how surprised I was to read your Mark. I searched around, did some process of elimination, and found you.” He spread his hands. “Congratulations on this law practice, by the way. You were never one to stay idle.”

D’Ablo crossed his arms in front of his chest. He knew he should have killed her. This was what he got for being merciful. “Nice story. You may go back to New York now.” He made a shooing motion with his hand. “Run along.”

Dorian’s thick brows rose. “You know, D’Ablo I am the only person who knows where you are. For now, I’m happy to keep your secret. Are you sure you want to jeopardize that by speaking to me like I’m one of your interns?”

D’Ablo scoffed. “You’re threatening me? Dying has made you go soft. If you had any intention of exposing me, I would have had Siberian trackers knocking on my door yesterday.” Internally, he wouldn’t bet on his interpretation of Dorian’s intentions. The Keeper was unpredictable. He didn’t act in any way that a normal person would act. He didn’t, however, make a habit of threatening people.

Dorian regarded him evenly. “You will have to come back eventually.”

D’Ablo got to his feet and shut the laptop with a snap. “Now is not the right time. You don’t think so, either.” He narrowed his eyes. “Now get the fuck out of my office.”

Dorian sighed. “We’ll be seeing each other.”

“Make it later rather than sooner.”

Dorian didn’t react. D’Ablo waited until he reached the bottom of the steps before moving from his spot. Then his body twisted of its own accord and slammed his knee into the desk. “FUCKING—!”

He thought he could hear Dorian’s laughter, but when he limped over the window to glare down at him one final time, he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> D'Ablo: damn i knew i should've killed that lady when i had the chance


	4. Chapter 4

D’Ablo didn’t dare relax. Knowing that Dorian was nearby, knowing that it was just a matter of time before he would have to return to Elysia, had his heart slamming against his ribs at every waking moment. He dreaded hearing footsteps going up to his office, worried that one day, it would be the Keeper at his door, and not a human wanting to air out their marital issues.

He should be excited. He should want to go home, return to his seat, return to his normal life as a high figure of society and no longer an anxious, obsessive fugitive. He looked the part—Armani suits returned to his closet, he stopped slowing his movements to accommodate the humans he worked with, and not a single streak of black remained in his hair, which was now just past his chin after a final chop to get rid of all the artificial color. He was starting to look like himself, feel like himself, and it felt wrong. Sometimes it made him want to crawl out of his skin. The thought of going home made his breath freeze in his lungs, his muscles tighten around his spine, his fingers go cold and numb. On the surface, he wanted to leave Norway and never come back. He didn’t want to examine the way every fiber of his being screamed for him to stay.

It came too soon. It had to come eventually, and he wasn’t ever going to be ready for it, but he would always maintain that his final night came too soon. The air in his apartment was thick with cigarette smoke despite the open window, and he was pacing furiously in his unused kitchen, too distracted to work. With a shaking hand he crushed the old cigarette into an overflowing ashtray and tried to light another one. The flame flickered and snapped away instantly. He flicked the lighter with a curse. It sparked and a quivering flame came to life, and that was when Dorian knocked on his door.

D’Ablo didn’t ask him how he knew where he lived. After peeking through the peephole, he opened the door without a word. His scowl said enough. Dorian stepped in and waved his hand in front of his face, a vain attempt at clearing the air in the room. He coughed. “How many have you smoked?”

D’Ablo eyed the cigarette packs lying on the kitchen counter. “One and a half.”

“Have you ever thought about self-improvement? Kicking your addictions, picking up some healthy habits?” His eyes travelled over the entrance and what little he could see of the other rooms, and widened in mock surprise. “I spoke too soon! No cocaine!”

D’Ablo’s scowl deepened. “I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. I didn’t leave it lying around in Stokerton, either. My dealer skipped town. I ran out last week.” He didn’t mention that Dorian also used it regularly. It wouldn’t get the reaction he wanted. He rubbed his forehead with the knuckle of his thumb. “Why are you here for? You don’t like me enough for this to be a social visit.”

Dorian’s unreadable and infuriating little half-smile wavered. D’Ablo’s heart sank. Dorian wasn’t here to be a royal pain in the ass tonight. This was a serious call. “You want to go back.”

Dorian sighed. “It’s time.”

“How is it _time_?”

Dorian’s mouth twisted. “The Slayer Society is planning a Cleansing in Bathory. That Slayer boy you hired? They think he’s doing an inadequate job of killing Elysians. They know about Vikas, Otis, Vladimir, and—” he paused. “And Tomas. Tomas has come out of hiding.”

For a moment, D’Ablo couldn’t breathe. “What?” No. No, it was too soon. It wasn’t like him. He was never supposed to reveal himself. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Dorian nodded and ran a hand through his thick black curls. They bounced back into place. “He’s living in Bathory. Em is furious. Vladimir made a deal with her to turn Tomas in, in exchange for his own life after that stunt you pulled. It bought him some time, but now they’re trying to find a way out of it. There are delays after delays. And now the Slayer Society knows that there are vampires in Bathory.”

D’Ablo lowered the cigarette from his lips. “How do you know all this?” There wasn’t a single mention of any of that, anywhere on the news.

“You’re not the only one with connections in the Slayer Society. We need to go.”

“We. Since when was there a ‘we’?”

For a single instant, irritation flickered in Dorian’s eyes. “Don’t be difficult. Do you think the Slayer Society will wipe out your problems for you?” His face relaxed, back into that semi-smug mask. “You think everything will resume as normal when you return to Elysia? Think you will be welcomed back with open arms? Except . . .” Dorian’s eyes widened. “You don’t really believe that. It’s what you tell yourself so you can sleep more easily. You’re afraid, D’Ablo.”

D’Ablo’s hand was shaking. He willed it to stop, but he couldn’t meet Dorian’s eyes. Instead, he took a deep drag of the cigarette and held it in his lungs. “I am not.”

“Yes you are.” A gleeful smile stretched across his face. “You are! You’re afraid!”

“I left so I wouldn’t be killed,” D’Ablo snapped. He held Dorian’s gaze for a second, then dropped it again. “As long as they’re alive, it’s not safe for me to return. Nothing to do with being _afraid_ —I’m not afraid of—”

Dorian’s laughter interrupted the rest of his speech. D’Ablo lifted his gaze and scowled.

“You can’t even look me in the eye and say that! You used to be a much better liar.”

“I have nothing to be afraid of!” D’Ablo shouted.

“Prove it. Return to the states. Show me you have nothing to be afraid of.”

D’Ablo bristled. “I have nothing to prove to you! It’s not safe for me to return—you wipe that stupid smile off your face before I do it for you.”

Dorian tilted his head. The smile didn’t waver. “You wouldn’t dare. You’re afraid of two things: me, and the consequences of your own actions. That’s why you don’t want to come back.”

D’Ablo zipped forward with vampiric speed. He grabbed Dorian by the collar and slammed him into the door. Dorian’s expression didn’t change. “You,” D’Ablo hissed between gritted teeth, “are. Wrong.”

Dorian tilted his head. “Then prove otherwise.”

D’Ablo’s knuckles went white on Dorian’s collar. For a moment, he strongly considered throwing him across the room, but decided that the retaliation he would suffer wasn’t worth it. Instead, he let go and backed away. “If you insist.”

Dorian shook his head and straightened his clothes. His smile remained where it was. “Spiteful as ever.”

“I don’t care enough about your opinion to spite you.”

Dorian only laughed. His laughter followed D’Ablo deeper into the apartment, and lingered in the entrance when he left.

When Dorian wanted to, he could work fast. He showed up once again, this time inside the apartment (D’Ablo didn’t want to think about how he got through the warding glyphs he had placed) waving plane tickets in D’Ablo’s face. He had already made reservations—at the Night Hotel, of all places, for which D’Ablo wanted to strangle him.

“Don’t you find that resurfacing in a lawless city—” he put careful emphasis on _lawless_ as they walked to their gate— “is an unnecessary risk? I’d be safer in Stokerton.”

Dorian rolled his eyes. “Funnily enough, I wasn’t considering you when I booked these reservations. You owe me $900 for your room and $3,000 for the flight, by the way.”

“Shove it.”

“Making that a favor, then,” Dorian said easily. “Noted.”

D’Ablo fumed silently next to him until they boarded the flight. At least Dorian had the decency to book first class. If he had to return to the States in economy, he might have screamed.

He attacked telepathically as soon as they lifted off. _< <What the hell is your plan, Dorian?>>_

Dorian’s hand paused on his sketchbook, then the pen scratches started up again. _< <Plan?>>_

D’Ablo’s hand curled into a fist on the armrest. _< <You’re waltzing into a Cleansing without a plan?>>_

_< <The Cleansing is next week.>>_ Even Dorian’s thoughts sounded bored. His pen sped up on the paper. _< <If you’re so concerned about a plan, why don’t you take these hours to come up with one?>>_

_< <Why are you dragging me back here a week before the damn Cleansing?>> _D’Ablo snapped.

_< <I wanted to go home. You’re a tag-along.>>_

_< <What is there in New York that is so important that you completely disrespect my wishes and bait me into endangering myself?>>_

Dorian finally lifted his head from the sketchbook. He regarded D’Ablo with half-lidded eyes. _< <You act like I forced you to come.>>_ When D’Ablo didn’t say anything, he lowered his eyes and returned his attention to the sketchbook. _< <My reasons are of no concern to you. Now hush.>>_

D’Ablo tried to retort, but Dorian shut his mind down with a violent crunch. D’Ablo pressed his palm to his forehead to mitigate the headache blooming behind his eyes. Dorian’s hand shook on the page. D’Ablo scowled at his profile before drawing the privacy curtain and turning away.

He thought he heard the click of a camera shutter, but he paid it no mind.

On second thought . . .

_< <Do make sure that young lady isn’t photographing us.>>_

Dorian smiled into his sketchbook. _< <Already taken care of.>>_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> D'Ablo: i'm not afraid  
> Dorian: d o u b t


End file.
